‘All men have their vices.’ A cynical droop to the eyelids provoked her to laughter.
She spun, surprisingly nimble-footed, away from the sheltering umbrella into the lush perfection of Osborne’s immaculate lawn.
‘Your Majesty is unprotected, and runs the risk of saturation,’ he called as she whirled farther off.
‘Nonsense! It is only God’s rain,’ she replied sharply.
‘God rains on earth and the Queen in England,’ he punned a little riskily.
Her frown vanished and she laughed once more, trailing her heavy skirt through the wet grass like a child at play.
‘When I return from Baden-Baden, you will be once more prime minister, and we shall have a celebration. A masked ball perhaps, I shall arrive as Titania and you as Oberon.’
Disraeli regarded her fondly, but he understood the root cause of these extremities of spirit. Fear of the unknown. Ah well, adopt an earnest tone. Though what is earnest is not always true.
‘Indeed, ma’am, to the confusion of our enemies, we hope to have much cause for celebration.’
Reassured somewhat, she smiled, then looked upwards and clasped her hands together in supplication.
‘Observe, prime minister. The rain has stopped. It is an omen! Our diligence must be blessed!’
Disraeli peered out cautiously from under the still dripping shade. He was dressed in black and his resemblance to a crow was unmistakable.
He furled the umbrella, struck a pose as if it were a walking stick to hand, and responded to her fervour.
‘We shall prevail, ma’am. And I am reminded of something Your Majesty was gracious enough to confide in me in her letters. We must adopt a
There was a element of self-parody in this bombast but the Queen seized upon the literal meaning.
‘There are tales he is a secret Papist and a … libertine!’ she exclaimed.
Disraeli smiled inwardly. Indeed Gladstone’s ‘rescue’ work amongst prostitutes had long been the most fertile source of innuendo, and if Beaconsfield had not actually given birth to these rumours, he, when they reached her ears, had certainly never contradicted them.
Over the years, he had made it his business to lace her thoughts with poison, wherever possible, as regards his bitter rival and, though he said it himself, he had made a splendid fist of it.
Fear gives rise to anger. Both can be manipulated. The art of politics.
Victoria brooded upon Gladstone’s faults.
‘He would
Her own words triggered off an alarm close to hysteria and she gazed at him with near-naked entreaty in her eyes, the previous comfort she had found in his assurances gone as if it had never been. Like the rain.
‘You must be my chief minister for ever. I demand it!’
He could not look her in the eyes. He felt he did not have the strength.
‘I am sure the people will choose wisely.’
‘But if they do not?’ she almost shrieked, then walked off abruptly to compose herself in a corner of the garden.
Indeed, thought Disraeli, if they do not, what could he offer her? His mind shifted to a conversation, held in a private club near St James’s Park. A private room, wreathed in cigar smoke, where he had sat with a man he had met barely half a dozen times. A man who moved in the higher, more secret, circles of power. Not yet at the top, but ambitious to be so. A man recommended.
It was not long after he had declared the election, and Disraeli was wondering if he had made a mistake.
They had spoken for near an hour and, at the end of it, the man had leant forward and said,
No. He could not offer that. Best take refuge in whatever wit he might dredge up.
He walked across the grass, leant over, and confided.
‘With any luck, Your Majesty, after a resounding defeat, Gladstone will emigrate to Siberia and remain there like an extinct volcano. Forgotten and fossilised.’
Not very good and part-pilfered from a much wittier phrase he had once coined, but it was the best he could manage at short notice and it had the desired effect.
She nodded happily at such a prospect and seemed to have fully recovered her spirits.
Disraeli was anxious to repair inside. He was rather exhausted, his very bones were aching in this damp, God-forsaken universe and a glass of port wouldn’t go amiss.
But Victoria had one more surprise in store.
‘Can you command a waltz, Mr Disraeli?’ she asked.
For once the silver tongue was tied.
‘I – I – have done so at one time without causing offence or accident,’ he finally murmured.
‘Prince Albert danced the waltz quite beautifully,’ she murmured.
She stood. Not looking at him. Gazing into a pleasant middle distance. Disraeli at last comprehended the nature of the silent invocation. His own wife had adored to dance but she was more inclined towards the polka, the rhythms of which he found … most unappetising.
He laid aside the umbrella and approached his Queen.
‘Would Her Majesty consider honouring her most humble servant?’ he almost whispered.
Without more ado, she held out her plump little arms, still encased in waterproofing, her hands safely covered from fleshly contact by the stout garden gloves. He took one of them in his, and put his other arm round her back in a discreet curvature.
They waited in silence. Somewhere high above, a seagull screeched mockingly. Finally Victoria began to hum a tune under her breath.
Disraeli, slowly, like a grandfather clock creaking into motion, began to move gingerly to the melody.
She followed suit. They danced. Ghosts in a garden.
Upstairs, Ponsonby could not believe what he saw. He bit hard into his knuckle to disprove hallucination, and then looked out once more.
The figures still waltzed before his sight. Victoria and the funeral director.
He would have found a measure of comfort, however, had he been able to catch the look in Disraeli’s eyes as he gazed over the head of his sovereign.
They were bleak. Like a cornered beast’s. Fixed upon an uncertain future.
A shaft of pale sunlight broke through the clouds and illuminated the dancers. The rest was gathering gloom.
26
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth
The battle afar off, the thunder of the captains,
And the shouting.
JOB, 39:25
Gladstone had begun speaking at five o’clock precisely, was near an hour into his speech and appeared to be just warming up.
He had first covered in intricate detail the financial profligacy of the Disraeli government turning an inherited surplus of six million pounds (a surplus created by a Liberal government in which Gladstone had been
